


Maybe I Do, and Maybe I Don’t (Maybe I Will, and Maybe I Won’t)

by runningsissors



Category: Smallville, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Earth, Canon - Comics, Canon - TV, Earth-2, F/M, Gen, Red K-Clark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 10:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningsissors/pseuds/runningsissors
Summary: "There are thousands of worlds where one choice splinters off into another; worlds where her life spirals out in a thousand different directions."





	Maybe I Do, and Maybe I Don’t (Maybe I Will, and Maybe I Won’t)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to livejournal in 2010. Rediscovered as I was cleaning out my dropbox and edited to be DC comic canon compliant.

.001

 

There’s a world where Lois bleeds out on a cold concrete floor, the faint sound of water flowing high above her. Oddly enough it doesn’t hurt that much, her body working overtime on shock and adrenaline. She pulls the blade out from deep in her stomach, hands shaking, and blindly fumbles for the cell phone in her pocket, dialling her most recent call and hoping it goes through.

 

But, even if she does have a signal, what does she expect Chloe to do? No one’s coming for her anytime soon, and let’s be real, there’s no miraculous recovery from a stab wound to the gut.

 

Stupid Lois, this was bound to happen. She’s always been a little reckless, but she never really thought she’d ever actually get herself killed because of it. She stumbles a few steps forward before her legs give out and her body goes numb.

 

Chloe never gets her call.

 

Hours later and far too late, Clark will find her body as he’s speeding through what’s left of the tunnels after the explosion. If she could have seen it, she would have been surprised and almost touched at how he’ll call her name, voice nearly choked in the back of his throat as he cradles her to his chest, and her blood seeps into the fabric of his jeans.

 

But as it is, it’s just one possible world of many.

 

 

 

.002

 

There’s a world where Lois follows newly minted Senator Martha Kent to Washington. Before Smallville, she might have said the base in D.C. was the closest thing she had to a hometown, but it doesn’t feel that way anymore.

 

Sometimes Clark calls for his mom when Mrs. Kent is in a meeting, and Lois hangs up mid-conversation just to see if he’ll call her back. He always does. Sometimes they chat into the night, and it isn’t until she hears the cleaning staff with the floor buffer that she realizes just how long it’s been, and they hastily and awkwardly say goodbye. 

 

She refuses to read too much into that.

 

Sometimes Chloe comes to visit from Metropolis when she’s got a break from college. Her father never does.

 

The work is hard, and the hours are long, but she’s always been an ace at cutting through the bullshit, and micromanaging has become an art form to her. But it doesn’t drive her the way she thought it might. She schedules interviews with the press for Mrs. Kent and fields questions on her behalf, and a voice in her head thinks about how this reporter is coming at the story from the wrong angle or asking the wrong questions before someone calls her, and the thought is lost.

 

 

 

 

 

.003 

 

There’s a world where Lois plummets off the edge of a Luthor Corp. sky scrapper and into the arms of an impossible man in a red cape. Her scream catches in her throat, coming out more like a choked laugh, as they float forty-storeys in the air. She gasps, her fingers digging into the fabric of his cape as she scrabbles for purchase. 

 

“Don’t worry Miss; I’ve got you.” The stranger says calmly, smiling reassuringly at her. As if a charming smile and a defined jawline are enough to distract her from the fact that they are _flying_.

 

“Well, aren’t you just… super,” Lois says once her feet are safely and _firmly_ on the ground. “How is what you just did even possible?”

 

This impossible man smiles again, a faint look of amusement in his expression and Lois feels heat rising up her chest. “Anything is possible. Although I’d suggest you not test the theory of whether _you_ can fly again anytime soon, Miss Lane.”

 

Before she has time to retort he pushes off the ground and back into the sky.  She watches him become a speck in the horizon before she whips out her cell phone, her fingers practically vibrating as she dials.

 

It goes to voicemail, of course.

 

“Kent,” she snaps, hurrying to hail a cab with her free hand, “I don’t know why you’re not picking up, you can’t possibly be doing anything more important. But get ready to bow at my feet because I just got the scoop of my career…”  

 

 

 

 

.004

 

There’s a world where Clark Kent, _Clark Kent,_ unassuming farm boy, is majorly superpowered and they fuck in a drugged infused passion. To say she’s surprised when he pulls her close and leaps across town to her ex-boyfriend’s penthouse in a single bound is the understatement of the century, but that shock is almost immediately eclipsed by the red haze clouding her mind, narrowing her thoughts down to overwhelming _want_.  

 

There are other euphemisms she could use: _having sex, sleeping together, knocking boots,_ the worst of all of them _making love,_ but they don’t succinctly describe the raw feeling coursing through her veins the way _fucking_ does. The warm feel of his breath on her neck and the sweet roll of his hips. When she gets him on his back, he mimics her; hands gripped to the railing behind them. The sound of metal crunching under his hands as she skims her lips across his abdomen is a turn on she didn’t know she had until this moment. But this place holds too many memories that she’d rather not be reminded of, so she tugs on Clark’s hair and breathes warm against the shell of his ear to take her to bed. He grins, and in the next stomach lurching moment, she finds herself outside the back entrance to the Talon. 

 

“Wow,” Lois gasps, hands fisted into Clark’s shirt like a vice grip, “I guess you are fast.”

 

Clark smirks, towing her into the Talon and up the stairs, this overwhelming feeling pulsing between them as she fumbles with her keys and he presses close behind her, hands sliding along her waist. They stumble in, clothes scattered like bread crumbs as they make their way to Lois’ room. Clark helps her strip off her boots that kill her feet, then hovers over her on the bed, fingers carded through her hair as he pulls her head back to meet his eyes.

 

Bless the Kent’s and their belief in using their son as manual labour. He’s sinew, corded muscle and Lois licks her lips.

 

“Lois,” he says now, a strangely intense look on his face, “you have to tell me if I start to hurt you okay? It’s important.”

 

She rolls her eyes, pushing till Clark’s back hits the mattress and she brackets his hips with her thighs. “Trust me Smallville,” she nips at his throat; the soft lobe of his ear and his head tilts back with a low moan, exposing the thick column of his neck. “I can handle whatever you’ve got.”

 

And she can.

 

And she does.

 

In the morning she’ll wake languidly, pleasantly sore and with absolutely no memory of the previous night. And later, after Chloe’s clued her in on Lois Gone Wild (much to both their embarrassment), Clark will blush when he sees her, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. She’ll be so stupidly charmed by it that she won’t even notice the subtle shift happening around them; the way heat pools in her belly when Clark smiles, or the way his eyes linger on her as she leaves.

 

 

 

 

.005

  
  
There are worlds, worlds where she wakes in an apocalyptic nightmare where humans are rounded up like cattle, and the sun is drenched in blood. A world where she watches her family die and is swept under by the all-encompassing love of a man crushed by the weight of the burdens he carries.

 

A world where the sky is grey and a ruthless conqueror terrorizes the planet with an emblazoned “ **U** ” as his calling sign of doom. A world where pragmaticism outweighs the betrayal of the people closest to her heart and a man with a monster’s face shakes her to her very core.

 

A world where she bears a son trapped on a planet outside of time and space; a perfect improbable boy with his father’s eyes and her inner fire. A world where her small family travels across time and dimensions, only to have her whole existence eased and merged into something and someone new.  

 

There are thousands of worlds where one choice splinters off into another; worlds where her life spirals out in a thousand different directions. Lois Lane has lived countless lives both full and textured, but as it is, she’s glad to have the life she has now even if it’s just one of many.

**Author's Note:**

> Comic references to Birthright, Convergence, Superman: Lois and Clark, and DC Rebirth.


End file.
